Mince Pies

You just can't beat a classic mince pie, still warm from the oven. I make mine nice and deep in a muffin tin rather than a shallow bun tin, to ensure plenty of filling in every mouthful. If you make your own mincemeat, by all means use it. As here, I often buy a good-quality ready-made mincemeat and enhance it with some lemon zest and added fresh fruit.

Makes 12 Prep 30 minutes, plus macerating Bake 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 quantity of sweet pastry (see pie section for recipe)

• Butter for greasing

• Flour for dusting

• 1 egg, beaten with a splash of milk (eggwash), for glazing

For the filling

• 410g jar mincemeat

• 2 satsumas, peeled and segmented, or ½ x 310g tin mandarin orange segments, drained

• 1 dessert apple, unpeeled, cored and finely chopped

• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

To finish

• Caster or icing sugar for sprinkling

Method

1. Put the mincemeat in a large bowl. Add the mandarin or satsuma segments, chopped apple and lemon zest. Stir well, cover and leave to macerate for several hours or overnight.

2. Heat your oven to 200°C. Lightly butter a 12-hole muffin tin.

3. Roll out your sweet pastry thinly on a lightly floured surface, to a 2-3mm thickness. Don’t worry if the pastry breaks or sticks, just press it together and re-roll. With a 10cm pastry cutter, cut 12 discs and use these to line the muffin tins. Use a 7.5-8cm cutter to cut 12 smaller discs for the pie lids. Re-roll your pastry as necessary to cut enough discs.

4. Put about 2 tsp of the mincemeat into each pastry case. Brush the edges of the smaller discs with eggwash and place over the mincemeat. Press the pastry edges together with your fingertips to seal. Brush the mince pies with a little more eggwash and sprinkle with a little caster sugar. Make a hole in the top of each pie with a small, sharp knife or the tip of a skewer.

5. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown and bubbling. Carefully remove the mince pies from the tins and leave on a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or cold, dusted with a little more caster sugar or icing sugar.

Taken from Paul Hollywood’s How To Bake, published by Bloomsbury

Photograph © Peter Cassidy